


The Others

by YellowPie



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Can’t screw up the protagonist’s characterization if you created the protagonist, Gen, My First Fanfic, My first attempt at writing anything for fun for that matter, No beta we wing it like witches, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28258032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowPie/pseuds/YellowPie
Summary: Do you really think only a single human managed to wander into the demon realm? But perhaps these other humans weren’t lucky enough to find someone to take them in.I came up with this title and summary at 1:45 am, hopefully it doesn’t show.
Relationships: Original Character & Original Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

As John walked through the outskirts of Bonesborough, he tugged nervously at the edge of his hood. Even with the damage his favorite blue sweatshirt had taken from the weeks he’d spent living in the woods with Leo, the hood still easily covered his ears. He knew that well, but it didn’t stop him from constantly worrying about it getting pulled down by a sudden gust of wind or some flock of nightmarish birds that lived here. 

One of the first things John and Leo had noticed when they started observing the town from a distance was the ears. Every living thing they saw, from the so-called “witches” who could easily pass as humans, to all sorts of humanoid creatures with colored fur and various numbers of horns and eyes, to a centaur with its face where its chest should’ve been; they all had either pointed ears or no ears at all. If someone saw his or Leo’s rounded ears, it was safe to assume they would be branded an “other.” And if this world was as old-fashioned as the paintings it looked like it came from, being an “other” would not be good. At best, he and Leo would be oddities for the townsfolk to gawk at, which they feared would just make finding whatever brought them here even harder. Worst-case scenario, well, finding a way home would be the least of their worries. 

For now, though, finding home was less important than the more immediate goal: finding a food stand. While neither John nor Leo were exactly eager to steal from people, meat and berries weren’t as abundant as they would’ve hoped in the woods where the friends made their shelter. On top of that, what food they could find rarely sat well with John. (Leo, on the other hand, seemed to be completely immune to whatever effects this otherworldly cuisine had on John.)

The search for a good food stand was sidetracked, however, when a particular stand caught John’s attention. The sign read  _ HUMAN COLLECTIBLES _ in large red letters, and below it stood a pair of bookshelves filled with various knick-knacks. The pale, grey-haired witch who ran the stand noticed John’s staring and called out to him. “You there! I can tell you’re interested in buying some of my rare human collectibles!” Her voice was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on exactly where he’d heard it.

John hesitated. On one hand, he’d rather avoid as much interaction as he could; more interaction meant more chances to be outed as someone from a different world. On the other hand, human collectibles had to come from the human world, right? Maybe she could give him some sort of clue to getting home. Maybe she even knew how to get to the human world. Maybe- “C’mon, at least take a look!” The witch said, breaking him out of his thoughts.  _ Don’t get too optimistic _ , John cautioned himself as he walked over to the table in front of the stand. Spread across it was an assortment of junk: a lone Croc, a stick of deodorant, and a small, black box. However, when he looked closer at the box, he couldn’t believe his luck. It was a solar-powered charger, something he couldn’t imagine finding in this nightmare world in his wildest dreams (which, considering the bizarre dreams he’d been having during his nights in this place, was saying a lot.)

Leo, being Leo, had downloaded hundreds of survival guides, DIY books, and Wikipedia articles onto his phone back home, which John had teased him for at least once a week. Once they got stuck here, though, John had taken back every joke he made about the wealth of now-vital knowledge stored in Leo’s phone. The two had both been worried about what they would do once the “tome of knowledge,” as they had begun calling it, ran out of battery, but with this they’d be set for however long they needed.

Trying to hide how desperately he needed this, John nonchalantly asked the witch, “So, how much for this… shiny paperweight?”

“I dunno, 10 snails?” She shrugged. “I got it months ago and you’re the first one to show any interest.”

_ So she wouldn’t miss it, _ John thought to himself. He thought of a question that he hoped would get the eccentric-looking witch distracted with an equally eccentric tale, and possibly gain him some information as well. “How do you even get all this human stuff, anyway?”

“Trade secret,” She answered, a sly grin showing off her pointy, golden tooth. “But I’ll tell you this-” before the witch could dispense her wisdom, she stopped herself and glared at John, who was subtly sneaking his hand closer to the charger. “Hold on, you’re trying to distract me so you can steal that paperweight, aren’t you?”

John tensed. “N- no, I-”

“I know a thief when I see one,” she started angrily. Then, she leaned in and whispered to him in a mischievous tone, “so let me give you a pointer. You didn’t hear it from me, but Envy Lane’s the best place to steal from. All the stands are run by rich folks’ kids who want to pretend they have jobs. They wouldn’t care about a missing apple or two, assuming they even noticed you took ‘em.” 

“Th- thanks?” John nervously replied, confused by the sudden change in tone.

“From one fellow thief to another,” she continued, winking. “Take the paperweight too. You clearly need it for something, and I doubt any of the schmucks who normally show up at my stand know what it is any better than I do.”

John pocketed the charger, and cautiously waved to the “fellow thief” as he left to look for Envy Lane.

—————

As the kid turned the corner, in the complete opposite direction of Envy Lane, Eda looked at her watch. “Olwbert’s sure taking his sweet time,” she muttered to herself. She looked back at the door hidden in the tent, its cat-like eye staring back at her. As much as she loved overhearing the rumors about the powerful Owl Lady, the last thing she needed was word getting out that she owned a portal to the human realm. She didn’t want to take any risks, even if she doubted the young boy she talked to would’ve believed her, much less said anything. Thinking again about the lesson she gave him, Eda smiled to herself. She didn’t know how long she had before the curse took her completely, so the least she could do now was help raise the next generation of nuisances to the Emperor’s Coven.


	2. This again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John follows the witch’s advice, Leo actually gets screentime, and I somehow write 2,000 words.

John wandered aimlessly through Bonesborough, cursing himself for not bothering to ask the witch he talked to for some simple directions. _What did I expect?_ He chastised himself. _Did I think I was just gonna walk off and wind up in this “Envy Lane?” Should I consult my handy-dandy “Map of the Nightmare Plane?” I should probably just head back. We’ve gone longer without a good meal, and if I keep wandering like this I’m gonna get–_ John stopped and took in his surroundings. They were completely unfamiliar to him, or at least less familiar than the few landmarks he and Leo had noticed on their forays into Bonesborough’s outskirts. _Too late._

John started to think of a plan, even as he began to feel the numbness and the pit in his gut that he only felt when he royally screwed up. He kept a long distance between him and any passerby, cinching his hood so tight they couldn’t be sure he even had a face. _Look for trees,_ he thought. _Trees mean the edge of town, from there I can circle the border until I find the familiar part of the outskirts._ Unfortunately, a quick glance at the towering buildings (and a couple actual towers) that surrounded him and blocked any possibility of seeing a tree quickly shut that plan down. _Ok,_ John thought. _Just look for the tallest building. That’ll be the center of town, so just head away from that._ He looked up again. “They’re _all_ tall buildings!” he yelled in frustration, suddenly grateful nobody was around to hear him. Another plan scrapped. Rather than come up with another clever idea that would immediately get shot down, he decided to try a plan so dumb it might just work: if wandering aimlessly in one direction got him here, maybe doing the same in the other direction would get him back. 

During his reverse wandering, he decided to actually pay attention to his surroundings. Neither he nor Leo had been this deep into Bonesborough before, so maybe he could add more to their journal. “Nightmare Planes for Basically Homeless Orphans,” as they had named it, was simply an empty notebook that had happened to be in Leo’s backpack when they arrived. The two used it to catalogue every fact about this world that they could find, from all the otherworldly plants and animals they saw to this “bile” stuff they had overheard about in witches’ conversations. 

After seeing the same handful of faces in hundreds of wanted posters plastered across the walls (many of which depicting the witch John talked to earlier), the street sign made for a pleasant change in scenery. Even better, as John read the sign he found he was right in front of Envy Lane. Not wanting the witch’s advice to go to waste, and knowing an adrenaline rush always seemed to improve his sense of direction, he decided to venture in. Just as the witch described, the streets were lined with dozens of expensive-looking stands, each one staffed by a teen talking with their friends or lazily looking at some small scroll. In front of one of these stands was a pyramid made of hundreds of apples, a fruit that somehow seemed to exist here in a form nearly identical to the ones back home. A plan started to form in John’s head, and he stood up straight and walked confidently to the pyramid.

John glanced at the stand’s owner, a pink-haired witch with all three eyes staring at the scroll floating in front of her. He took a pair of apples off the top of the pyramid, pretending to compare the two. He started to put one back, then “accidentally” bumped into the bottom of the pyramid, causing all the apples to fall onto him. In the chaos of the rain of apples, he stuffed the ones he had been holding into his pockets. As the rain of apples stopped, he looked around, seeing the stand’s owner and a handful of nearby witches staring at him. He ran off, hoping his escape would be seen as simply an awkward teen who was too nervous to talk to anyone.

—————

Boscha groaned, looking at the mess that weird kid had made. She took a selfie of her pouting with the spilled apples in the background and posted it to Penstagram. 

_smh some weirdo knocked over my display and ran away before i could make them fix it #totallylovemyjob_

She sighed and drew a spell circle, the apples quickly reforming into a neat pyramid as she sat down and waited for comments on her latest post.

—————

John slowed down as he turned the corner, finally ending up on a street he’d seen before. As he started making his way back to the forest, he passed the road that had held the stand that started this whole mess, only to see a gap where the stand had been. “All of that avoided,” he mumbled to himself, “if I had just turned right.”

After a pleasantly uneventful walk through the woods, he finally made it to his and Leo’s shelter. Thankfully, they hadn’t had to make one themselves, as they had happened to find a massive shell, with nubs that were clearly once wicked spikes jutting out of it at various points. It was big enough to comfortably fit both of them and all their stuff, and, most importantly, keep them out of the acidic rain that helped earn the Nightmare Plane the name the friends had given it. 

Leo peeked out of the shell as he heard footsteps approaching, and called out to John. “Jeez, finally! This haul better be worth the wait!”

“I wasn’t gone that long,” John replied. “It was like, an hour max.”

“It was an hour and a half, if I’m being generous.”

“Potato, tomahto. Wanna see what I got or not?”

“Let’s see it.”

John pulled the apples out of his pockets. “Two apples,” he started.

“Nice,” Leo commented.

“And…”

“And?”

“Behold!” John drew the charger from his pocket triumphantly.

“No way!”

“That’s what I said!” John replied excitedly.

“Ok, you have _got_ to tell me the story on this one.”

“Boy, do I have a story.” John started, recounting the day’s events to his friend.

Once the story was finished, Leo had a question. “Hold on. You just asked this complete stranger, point-blank, ‘hey, how do you get all this rare stuff that seems to be your only source of income?’ And you expected them to say literally anything useful?”

“I dunno,” John shrugged. “I guess I hoped the path home would be something not that secretive.”

“If it was ‘not that secretive’,” Leo replied, “we’d see this stuff all the time back home.”

“Fair point.”

“You said the stand was gone?”

“Yep.”

“Ok, tomorrow morning we go back there and strike up a friendly conversation, try to squeeze out some info more casually.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The friends sat in silence, eating their stolen apples. “Y’know,” John said as he finished his apple, “this ‘way back home’ biz would be a lot easier if we had literally any memory of the day we came here. It’s like the plot to some garbage book or something.”

“We have plenty of info! Don’t you remember our expansive ‘Prophetic Dreams’ section?” Leo flipped to said section in _Nightmare Planes for Basically Homeless Orphans_ , revealing a single sentence: “Green scenery, glowing rectangle made it all red.”

“You’re right,” John said sarcastically. “Maybe tonight I can believe really hard and I’ll have a dream that tells me what happened in perfect detail.”

“That’s the spirit,” Leo replied in a similar tone.

That night, Leo got the first shift of “patrol,” where he walked around the shell and would flash his phone’s light at any creatures that came too close. Thankfully, they hadn’t yet seen a creature that wasn’t dispelled by this technique, although he hadn’t yet seen anything that looked like it could actually attack him at all. As Leo patrolled, the chirping insects that sounded just a little bit different from the ones at home slowly lulled John to sleep.

_A school bell._

_Freedom._

_Excitement._

_Hooting._

_Curiosity._

_Blinding light._

_Confusion._

_A new, yet familiar voice._

_“Nobody tried to follow you this time, did they?”_

_Panic._

_Running._

_Running._

_Searing pain._

_Shelter._

John woke up. As the dream came back to him, he jolted up, scrambling for a pencil and paper before he could forget his dream. Leo peeked into the shell, looking for the source of the sudden rustling. “You’re not usually up this early,” he commented.

“Well, I don’t usually have and remember some sort of prophetic dream,” John replied, “so gimme the light and let me write all this down before I forget it all.”

“I guess you really did just have to believe really hard.”

John finished jotting down his dream, and started more legibly copying it into their journal. “I’m guessing it’s about time to rotate out, so do me a favor and do some believing of your own before you sleep.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Leo handed the phone to John, eager to finally get some rest. As soon as his head hit the pile of leaves they used as a pillow, he was out like a light, having a dream of his own.

_Leo looked to the sky and saw a flock of large creatures with lion-like bodies and pigeon heads fly above him and John. “I guess Luz was right,” John mused. Leo started hearing his voice, but he wasn’t the one talking. “Who?” His voice asked._

_“Noceda, the only girl in our Japanese class, I have Art with her too. She got in trouble last week for taxiderming a griffin and it looked just like these ones.”_

_His voice again started on its own. “Huh. She got in trouble just for making a weird-looking griffin?”_

_“Well, she also gave it ‘spider breath.’ With real spiders.”_

_“Yeesh.”_

_Just then, one of the larger griffins screeched, spewing a swarm of spiders over the ocean. “Ok, that’s just freaky.” Leo still wasn’t speaking the words, but he now remembered saying them weeks ago. “Wait a second, didn’t you have a crush on her in second grade?”_

_“Well, you ate your own boogers in second grade.” John shot back._

_“And_ who’s _not having trouble eating the weird food here?”_

_“_ That’s _the comeback you’re going for?” John asked exasperatedly. “‘I sure am glad I accidentally cut my nose off a decade ago,’” he said in a mocking tone. “‘That skunk that just sprayed me would’ve been a way bigger problem.’”_

_Leo started to feel himself wake up, but not before adding one last quip that he couldn’t get in the time it really happened. “Eh, noses are overrated anyway.” Even in his dreams, he always tried to have the last laugh._

John stood over Leo, ready to try to shake him awake for the third time. “Finally decided to wake up? You better have had some crazy prophetic dream to sleep in this late.”

“What time is it?” Leo asked, stretching as he got up.

John looked straight up, trying to find the sun. “Cloudy.”

“Well, no better time than Cloudy to question a mysterious witch with connections to the human world.” The two set off, taking their backpacks with them so nothing would be abandoned under the shell.

The stand was in the same place as yesterday, but today it had a large crowd around it, their bidding almost completely drowning out what sounded like the soundtrack to a 70’s exercise video. The witch they saw yesterday started to stand on her table, declaring to the crowd, “I’m Eda the Owl Lady, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. I am a respected, feared–”

“Busted!” A gruff voice shouted, smashing the small tv that the crowd had been clamoring for. The crowd scattered, and John and Leo followed their lead to escape the guard.

The two finally slowed down once they had entered the forest, catching their breath from the panicked sprint through Bonesborough. Once he was breathing normally again, John sighed. “Welp, so much for that plan.”

“Probably for the best,” Leo said. “I had no clue what I was going to actually say to her.”

“Nice to see that your plans are as foolproof as always,” John deadpanned. “Did you see anything worth writing down? Y’know, besides the obvious ‘The most powerful witch here is named “Eda the Owl Lady” and this place is called the “Boiling Isles”’ stuff.”

“Call me crazy,” Leo started, “but I swear I saw Luz standing next to that ‘Eda’.”

John turned his head to look Leo in the eyes. “You’re crazy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case the line about John’s crush worried you, I can assure you that there will be no shipping or anything like that in this story. Maybe a hint of Lumity in the background of the opportunity presents itself, but absolutely nothing of the sort will be happening with John or Leo.


	3. The One where Magic Stuff Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magic stuff happens.

John and Leo dejectedly walked back to their shelter, a path so familiar that the encroaching darkness of night in the forest no longer slowed their progress at all. As the friends sat down under their shell, they both sighed. “And that marks exactly 2 months since we last saw even a glimpse of this elusive Eda The Owl Lady,” Leo declared flatly.

“Haven’t heard anything about ‘Luz’ either,” John added, making finger quotes around their former classmate’s name.

“Frankly, I’m not even sure myself that I really saw Luz there,” Leo admitted. “If we hadn’t heard those rumors about a human being spotted, I would’ve started assuming I just saw a witch with weird ears weeks ago.”

“I still think they were talking about us. What are the odds that exactly three teens from the same grade in the same school all find the same portal to the same nightmare plane?”

“Probably not much lower than the odds of them finding different nightmare planes.”

“I guess, but-”

John’s point was cut off by a clap of thunder, and he let out a long groan.

“Lovely,” he said. “Acid rain. Because even the stupid weather here can’t bother to be normal.”

John and Leo sat in silence as the storm raged on, listening to the sharp hisses that the drops let off as they splashed on the ground. Eventually, the wind started to pick up, and the two had to huddle in the very back of the shell to avoid the rain. Leo looked at the point where the shell met the dirt, and started to wonder aloud. “I bet we could dig this thing up and get a lot more coverage from these storms.”

“Will you be providing the shovels?” John replied.

“No, but we’ve got sticks, we’ve got rocks, if it worked in the Stone Age, it’ll work for us!”

“I’m in. I’ve been itching for any sort of concrete task for a while.”

“Then what do you call what we’ve been doing for the past 2 months?”

“Ah, yes, the solid, unshakable plan of ‘Step 1, find the most powerful witch in the world, step 2, do something, step 3, go home.’”

“But you have to admit, my plans always work out in the end.”

“Like last month’s plan of going into a sketchy night market and almost getting trampled by some walking house?”

“But we  _ didn’t _ get trampled. That’s a win in my book.”

“You’re impossible sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Leo joked. ”You’ve been going easy on me these past months.”

“Well of course,” John replied matter-of-factly. “I need to have the holder of the Tome of Knowledge on my side if I want to survive out here.”

The two eventually heard the strange chirping of the forest’s bugs, signaling to them that the storm had passed. “Well,” Leo started, “shall we start our little excavation?”

“In the middle of the night?”

“I bet the sound of the work will keep anything bad far away from us.”

“I guess that’s true. Where do you suggest we find our shovels?”

“I bet the river will have some good stones.”

The “river”, which was more accurately described as a small creek, had been John and Leo’s source of drinking water once they realized that rain that singed holes into their clothes wasn’t likely to be safe for drinking. They had recently abandoned it as they found out about the public pumps scattered around Bonesborough, but the path to it was still strongly engraved into their minds. Just as Leo predicted, they found plenty of flat rocks that would make for perfect shovel heads. As they made it back to their shell with the rocks, they decided it wasn’t necessary to have handles on the shovel when they could simply hold a rock in their hands. 

The two worked through the night, keeping themselves awake through menial conversations about memories from home, theories about the world they were stuck in, and the best cards from their favorite game, Mana Clash. As the sun began to rise in the morning, they had made enough progress to see the rim of the shell peeking out from deep in the dirt. With a few heavy pulls on the opposite end, the shell tipped forward, the opening now low enough that they had to crouch down to enter it. As they observed the changes from the inside, they both almost instantly laid down and fell asleep, the effects of their all-nighter finally taking its toll.

When John woke up, it was already well into the evening, and Leo was shining his phone’s light at something in the newly uncovered wall inside their shell. “What is that?” John asked. Carved into the shell was a strange symbol. A pair of circles surrounded 2 reflected triangles, with a circle circle passing through each triangle's center. 3 “U” shapes lined the edge of the top triangle, which made the symbol remind John of an overflowing chalice as he reached out to touch it. “I wouldn’t-” Leo started, but by the time he started talking John had already pressed his palm flat against the carving. A blue light filled the indents, and soon after a ball of water shot out, passing through John’s hand and out the shell’s narrow entrance, splashing on the ground like a giant water balloon. John and Leo looked at each other in awe, John’s damp hand still on the engraving. 

“Did you just-”

“I think I just-”

The two paused and looked at each other. “ _ Woah. _ ” They said in unison.

Leo hesitantly tapped the symbol, secretly hoping that he wouldn’t end up being the sidekick to some “chosen one.” Unlike John’s attempt, Leo’s touch caused the engraving to gently spray water like a shower head. As Leo cupped his hands to drink some of the magically-created water, John took a sheet of paper and copied the symbol down. He poked the rune, which caused it to crumple and morph into a small ball of water. John proudly watched the ball hover in the air for a few seconds, before it fell and splashed into his lap. After showing the trick to Leo, the two spent hours practicing and experimenting with their newfound magic, only stopping as they got too tired to draw. “So,” Leo started, “tomorrow starts the Great Magic Rune Scavenger Hunt?”

“Yeehaw,” John weakly replied, already half-asleep.

—————

“Edalyn,” Lilith said, closing the door before the house demon could strike up a conversation with her. “Are you aware of any witches living within the forest?”

“Why do you ask, did you hear some voices on your walk?” Her sister responded. “That’s just part of the curse.”

“I wasn’t aware of the effects the curse had on your psyche all these years,” Lilith said sadly. “I never should’ve put you-”

“Stop,” Eda interrupted. “I was just trying to mess with you, but I forgot how boring you being remorseful was.”

“So there really were witches in the woods?”

“Probably just some dumb kids out camping. I don’t really care what they do, but if you keep hearing ‘em I’ll go remind them to not accidentally burn down the forest.”

—————

“Looks like today was another bust,” John said. “I imagine this would be a bit easier if we actually knew what to look for.”

“Don’t sound so dull,” Leo replied. “It took us months to find our first rune; we shouldn’t give up after just a week.”

“I know, I just… I want to feel like I’m doing something useful. We’ve been gone for months, what’s been going on at home? If we get back-”

“ _ When _ we get back,” Leo corrected.

“Yeah.  _ When _ we get back, I want to bring back more than I came here with, y’know? I want to be able to look back on this and think something like, ‘Yeah, that time in the Nightmare Plane was horrible at the time, but I can’t imagine who I’d be if I never went there.’ I want to come back as ‘John O’Neil, the Human Who Took on the Nightmare Plane,’ not ‘John, that weird kid who went missing then came back traumatized.’ You get what I mean, right?”

Leo responded with a simple “yeah.”

The friends sat in silence, listening to the crackling of their small campfire. They had never wanted to light one before, but they felt more confident in doing so now that they could summon water at will. Suddenly, Leo stood straight up and started blinking rapidly. “Get me a pencil and paper,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically urgent, “quickly!” John, surprised by the sudden change in tone, did as his friend asked. Leo snatched the notebook and pencil from his friend when he handed them over, and quickly scribbled something down. “What was that about?” John finally asked.

“You know how you get that weird rainbowy thing in your eye when you stare into something bright?” Leo explained.

“Not sure why you were staring directly into the fire,” John replied, “but carry on.”

“Yeah, when I stared at it, that thing sort of looked like some pattern!”

“Do you think…” John started.

“Only one way to find out!” Leo exclaimed, smacking the symbol he just drew. As he did, the paper turned into ash and crumbled away. “Shoot,” he said. “Probably should’ve made it neater.”

“Do it slower this time,” John said excitedly, “I want to see it too.”

Leo slowly drew the symbol. There was a pair of circles; a larger one with a dot in the center, and a smaller one standing on top of it. Each circle had 2 lines coming out of it, forming the circles into teardrop shapes. Leo gently tapped the rune, and the paper crumpled before bursting into a small, floating ball of fire. They both wordlessly stared at it, until Leo ended the fireball by closing his hand and the silence by mockingly saying “ _ Don’t stare at the sun, Leo, you’ll hurt your eyes. _ Who’s laughing now, mom?”

“And they say nothing good comes from stupidity,” John joked. Rather than responding with a quip of his own, Leo simply stared off into space. As Leo’s words caught up to John, he did the same.

_ Mom. _

_ I’ll come back,  _ John wordlessly swore to his parents.  _ I promise. _

“Welp,” Leo said loudly, again breaking their silence. “We better get sleeping. You want first patrol?”

“Sure,” John said absentmindedly, using a few water runes to put out the campfire.

As Leo slept, John started practicing with their newfound rune. He soon learned to stick a piece of paper bearing a fire rune to one hand and a water one to the other, allowing him to quickly summon or put out a fire, or create a cloud of fog by clapping his hands together. As he was practicing this new trick, he suddenly started to hear footsteps. Unlike the usual sounds of wildlife, this one was slower, like it was trying not to be heard. He went over to Leo and shook his friend awake. “Already?” Leo asked groggily. “I heard something weird,” John explained, “I’m gonna go check it out. 1 cough means I need backup, 2 means I’ve got it under control.”

“Ok,” Leo said, still too tired to fully process the situation. “Don’t die or anything.”

“Well, I can’t now that you told me not to,” John joked. He readied his runes, and slowly walked toward the sound. As he got closer, he started to see the silhouette of something. Hoping to get the first move, he quickly shouted and charged forward, tapping the fire rune on his left hand. Instead of the other responding with some sort of roar like he expected, he heard a voice call something out.

“Spicy toss!”


	4. Chapter 4

“Spicy Toss!” Shouted the witch in front of John, conjuring a fireball almost identical to the one he held. He quickly activated the water rune in his other hand, extinguishing the fireball and drenching its holder. “Ok,” she conceded. “That’s fair. Look, I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to know what you’re doing in my forest.”

“ _Your_ forest?” John asked. “We- _I_ never saw your name anywhere. Did you mark it with some sort of witch scent?”

“What? No! Unless…” Eda recalled some of the odd situations she found herself in after a stint as the owl beast, but quickly dismissed the concept. “No, that’s just gross.”

“I should be asking what _you’re_ doing, stalking around ou- _my_ base.”

“Alright kid, I’d let one slip-up slide, but if you mess up like that all the time in front of someone worse than me, they’re gonna take advantage of it. Bring your friend over here too.” John suddenly recognized the familiar voice he was hearing. “Wait a second, you’re Eda the Owl Lady, aren’t you?”

“Who’s asking?”

“You gave me something a couple months ago, and we’ve been looking for you ever since.”

“I admire the persistence, but I admire my no refunds policy a bit more.”

“No, it’s actually been a huge help, I can’t thank you enough. My friend and I just have some questions about it, let me grab him and I’ll be right back.” John ran back to the shell, with Eda following him from a distance.

“I take it you didn’t die?” Leo asked as John crawled under the shell.

“Nope,” John replied, slightly surprised his friend was still awake. “Turns out the thing I heard was that Eda we’ve been looking for.”

“Convenient. What’d she say?”

“Dang, kid, you live like this?” Eda shouted from outside the shell.

“You _led_ her here?!” Leo whispered sharply. “Relax,” John replied. “She could’ve melted my face off, but I shot some water at her and she just gave up.”

Leo sighed, but left the shell with his friend.

“Ok, first things first,” Eda said once the two emerged. “I am _not_ letting you spend the night under that dinky shell. C’mon, I was just about to make dinner, and you guys can crash on the couch tonight.” She saw the friends share a nervous glance. “Don’t worry,” she reassured, “I’ve got a kid there around your age, and she hasn’t thrown up from my cooking in weeks. I can answer whatever you two wanted to ask me on the way there.”

John and Leo both weighed the pros and cons in their heads, and eventually decided to follow her through the woods. “How’d you know we lived there?” John asked. “Number 1,” Eda started, “nobody camps under a snaggleback shell for fun, not unless they have a death wish. Number 2, you both look like you haven’t showered in months. Smell like it too.” She emphasized her last point by waving her hand in front of her nose. “Sorry about that,” John apologized. 

“I’ll accept your apology once you take a shower. Hope you don’t mind cold water though, our heater’s on the fritz.” John had never been so excited for a cold shower before as they continued to walk through the woods. “So…” Leo started. “How does human stuff end up in this place anyway?”

“Trash slugs,” Eda replied, offering no further explanation. Leo thought about asking further, but the tone of her voice made it clear that wouldn’t work. “ _Try to squeeze out some info more casually,_ ” John whispered to him in a poor impression of his friend’s voice.

As the three made it into a clearing, an owl’s face suddenly appeared in front of them. “Hi Eda!” it called out. “I didn’t know you were bringing me new frieeeends!” It stretched out the last word as the face circled around the boys, revealing a feathery tube behind it that extended from the door. Eda hit the tube with her hand, causing it to retract into the door. “Stop weirding out new guests, Hooty.”

“They weren’t _that_ annoying,” John said as they entered the house. He heard Hooty gasp excitedly, but Eda closed the door before the owl could say anything more to him.

“Welcome to the Owl House!” Eda announced, snapping her fingers. After a pause, she dropped her hand. “Oh, right,” she muttered to herself. “Anyway,” she continued, “you already know who I am, and this is my sister.” She gestured to a stern-looking woman with black hair that was in desperate need of a brush, who put down her magazine and stood up from her chair. “Greetings,” she said, “my name is Lilith.”

John wasn’t sure how people introduced themselves here, but he remembered overhearing a conversation that had something that sounded like an introduction. “My name is John,” he said as he bowed. “He of O’Neil, them of…” he paused as he considered what he should call his home. “...Oregon,” he finally decided. “And I am Leo,” his friend said, quickly following along. “He of Johnson, him of Oregon.” Eda looked confused, while Lilith seemed more surprised. “You sound like you’re introducing yourself to the emperor,” the dark-haired witch said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “Gross,” Eda replied. “I will not have this kind of respect for authority under my roof.”

“Sorry,” John said nervously. “We… don’t really know the, um...”

“Customs?” Leo offered.

“Yeah. We’re from really far away, we don’t really know the local customs.”

Lilith hummed thoughtfully. “Are you two from the human realm, by chance?”

John, Leo, and Eda all looked at Lilith in stunned silence. “I used to be known as the Emperor’s left hand,” she explained. “If there was an ‘Oregon’ on the Boiling Isles, I would have at least heard of it.” She walked to the boys and pulled down their hoods, the two still too stunned to stop her before they realized what was doing. The months of living in the wilderness had let John’s hair grow long enough to cover the tops of his ears, but Leo’s former buzz cut left the rounded ends clearly visible. “Dang, Lily,” Eda said in surprise. “You’re even better at spotting a lie than me!”

“Years of interrogations helped in that,” she replied.

“Ok,” John conceded, “you got us, we're humans. What’re you planning on doing to us? You gonna throw us in the confine-atory or whatever?”

“Don’t worry,” Eda assured, “we’re not giving anything up to Emperor Bonehead.”

“If you wish, we can keep this secret between us,” her sister added.

“Yeah, I think I’d prefer that,” Leo said. As he and his friend put their hoods back on, Eda’s head perked up. “That’s why you wanted to know where my human junk came from, isn’t it?”

The two nodded at her excitedly. “About that,” she said nervously. “The portal’s… well, it’s-”

“The portal was recently destroyed,” Lilith finished. The two turned to her with expressions that looked like she just told them their parents died, which she realized was a fairly accurate comparison. “However,” she quickly added, “we’ve been working hard to create a new one.” 

“And we could use all the help we could get,” Eda added. “I saw you use a couple spells, you two should apply to Hexside. Learn some more spells, get free lunch, and a roof over your head 7 hours a day, 5 days a week. Talk to Principal Bump, and he’lll probably help you with your whole sleeping situation too.”

“What do you mean?” Leo asked.

“Ol’ Bumpikins may be the biggest stick in the mud since they invented swamps, but he really cares about his students. If you tell him what’s going on, I’m sure he can work something out to give you a real place to sleep most of the time.”

“Is he going to care about the whole ‘being humans’ deal?” John asked. “Nah,” Eda said, “he’s totally cool with humans. Speaking of,” She turned to the staircase and shouted to the top of it, “HEY LUZ, COME DOWN AND SAY HI!”

John and Leo turned to each other. John was in disbelief, while Leo wore an expression that practically shouted “I told you so.” Looking at their reactions, Lilith asked the two, “Do you know her?”

“We… knew her,” John said.

“I love meeting new Boiling Isles friends!” Luz excitedly said as she came down the stairs. “Sorry to burst your bubble then,” Leo said as she appeared in the living room. “Leo?” Luz said, shocked at seeing other humans. “And, uhh… sorry, I am terrible at names, but I know you were in Japanese class too.”

“It’s John,” he supplied. “Don’t worry, I’m bad with names too.”

“So, what brings you two to the Boiling Isles?”

“We could ask you the same thing.”

“It’s an age-old story. Girl doesn’t want to go to summer camp, girl gets kidnapped by witch, girl stays with witch, now girl’s kinda sorta stuck here!” John and Leo looked to Eda. “Kidnapped?” John asked.

“It’s all good,” Luz assured. “She was gonna let me go home after a bit, but I decided to stay with her instead.”

“Must’ve been an awful summer camp to want to stay with someone who basically kidnapped you.”

“‘Reality Check Summer Camp: Think Inside The Box!’” Luz recited with a sarcastically upbeat voice.

John shuddered. “Yikes, I’d take getting kidnapped by a witch over going there any day.”

“Anyway, what about you guys? What magical shenanigans have you been getting up to?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Living in the woods, stealing from the market to survive, totally not getting the short end of the magical world stick.”

“Wow, that… I feel like it’s a bit of an oversimplification to just say it sucked.”

“No, you’re right, it totally sucked.”

“I assume you guys are staying for dinner, but what are you going to do after that? You’re not just going back to living in the woods, are you?”

“Actually,” Eda chimed in, “I was just telling them they should go to Hexside.” Luz’s face lit up. “Oh my gosh, you guys should totally go! It’s kinda like school, but the stuff they teach you is so much cooler! You get to learn about potions, illusions, abominations, hold on, let me get the pamphlet!”

Luz turned to run up the stairs, but before she went away, Leo blurted out something he almost immediately regretted. “John had a crush on you in second grade.”

“What did you say?” Luz asked, confused.

“ _What_ did you say?!” John asked, outraged.

“I said-” Leo started, nervous at his friend’s sudden change in tone.

“I heard what you said!” John interrupted, his voice raising. “ _Why_ would you say that?!”

“I- I don’t know,” Leo stammered. “I, I guess it’d, like, break the ice, y’know, or, like, y’know, get- get something going?”

“‘Get something going’?” John repeated in disbelief. “‘Get something going’?! I’M GAY, YOU IDIOT!” John could feel the heat in his face from some mix of embarrassment and anger, and he quickly took in the silent stares of the other people in the room. “I… I’m going to go talk to that owl thing outside,” he said, excusing himself out the front door. 

“Wow,” Luz said as the door shut behind John, “you must’ve made him pretty mad if he’d rather talk to Hooty.” “Of course he’s mad,” Eda replied, turning to Leo. “This kid just blurted out one of his friend’s most embarrassing secrets!” Luz, who hadn’t heard what Leo said at first, finally put all the context clues in place. “Oh,” she suddenly said, the awkwardness of the situation fully dawning on her. “I’m gonna… work on some homework. Call me when dinner’s ready.” Leo flopped face-down onto the couch as Eda went to cook their meal.

_When I really think about it,_ Leo thought as he laid on the couch, _it was inevitable that I would end up doing something as stupid as this. I always said, “when it comes to talking, the worst they can do is walk away.” Well, congratulations, me, they walked away. John probably hates me, everyone else probably thinks I’m creepy, I-_ Leo’s thoughts were interrupted by some small creature climbing on top of him and curling up on his back. Some nightmare plane pet, he assumed. Without even bothering to try to get a look at the thing on his back, he reached around and tried to pet it, but his fingers met something smooth and hard, almost like a rock. The creature let out a small “Weh?” before it shifted and started to speak. “I don’t know who you are,” it said in a high-pitched voice, “but around here, the rules are ‘you hog the couch, you are the couch.’” Leo mumbled in acknowledgment and continued to stroke the smooth surface. After spending months in this bizarre world, a talking housecat made of stone would be far from the strangest thing he had seen. Eventually an unfamiliar smell wafted into the room, which Leo presumed was dinner. He heard footsteps up and down the stairs, but chose to wait until someone called him before he got up. Instead, he opted to continue resting his eyes and petting whatever was napping on his back.

While Lilith searched the house for more chairs for their unexpected guests, Eda went to gather them for dinner. When she entered the living room, she wasn’t surprised to still see Leo laying on the couch, but she hadn’t expected to see King napping on his back as the boy pet him. She had seen Luz and King in a similar situation before, but she didn’t think the demon would do the same with a total stranger. “Hey King, Couch Boy, dinner’s ready,” she called to them. King hopped off the boy’s back and walked to the kitchen, as the boy slowly raised himself from the couch and made his way to the hall. “Take a left, then first hall on the right,” she instructed. 

Eda slowly opened the front door, silently hoping Hooty hadn’t bored the poor kid to death. What she found instead was something she never would’ve expected. John was lying in the grass, his eyes closed as he was clearly in some deep conversation with Hooty.

“I don’t want them to be ‘in’ my life,” John was explaining, “but I want them to be in my life. Y’know?” 

“ _I’m_ in this door, hoot hoot!” Hooty cheerfully replied. John chuckled. “You sure are, Hooty, you sure are.”

“I hate to interrupt your little therapy session with the door,” Eda cut in, “but dinner’s ready.”

Hooty grumbled. “We were having a moment, _Eda_.”

“And _we’re_ having dinner.” She replied. “Skullgull and rice,” She said to John. “Trust me, tastes better than it sounds. Seems to sit pretty well with humans too.”

John sat up and opened his eyes, but Eda could see a hint of hesitation in him. “Luz is eating in her room while she works on some homework,” she said, answering the unspoken question. John picked himself up off the ground and followed the witch inside, promising Hooty that he’d finish their conversation some other time.

When John made it to the kitchen, Eda and Lilith were already eating their meals, as was some small creature sitting in a high chair. Internally, John was gushing over the adorable demon, but thanks to Leo the two had learned pretty quickly that most of the demons here didn’t take too kindly to being called “cute.” Speaking of Leo, he was there too, brows furrowed as he chewed something slowly, probably trying to find a comparison to some food from home. When he saw John, he quickly swallowed his food and pointed to him. “There’s John,” he explained to the demon, who turned to look where he was pointing. “They’re staying the night too.”

“There’s two of you?!” The demon cried. “Where am I supposed to sleep now?”

“King, you haven’t spent the night on the couch in three months,” Eda said to him. “You made this same fuss the night Lily showed up, then never mentioned it again.”

“At least then the chair was an option,” King grumbled.

John sat down next to Leo, where a plate was already set out for him. He ate slowly, not to savor the taste, but to have an excuse to not talk to anyone about the earlier… incident. After around a minute of silent eating, Leo looked at John. “I know beggars can’t be choosers and all that, but man, I would kill for some Taco Dragon or… something…” he trailed off as he realized John had made no effort to even acknowledge his attempt at conversation.

After licking the last bits of rice off his plate, King stood up. “Well, that was a painfully awkward dinner,” he stated bluntly. “I’m going somewhere with less awkwardness and B.O.”

“Right,” Leo said, remembering Eda’s comment from their walk. “Showers.”

“No need to put you through trying to use that awful shower that _someone_ promised to fix,” Lilith said, drawing a blue circle with her finger. A larger ring surrounded John and Leo, and after it passed over them the two felt cleaner then they had in months. “Two cleaning spells without passing out? You’re really getting better,” Eda commented. “maybe by the end of the month you’ll be able to rival an 8-year-old.” She snorted at her joke, and Lilith turned around to leave the kitchen. “I’ll be on my walk,” she grumbled. John and Leo were still finishing their meals, leaving yet another awkward silence between them and Eda, who was still at the table. Once she heard the closing of a door from someone outside the room, the witch leaned towards John and Leo. “Look, I’ve been through this couch surfing thing myself a time or two,” she admitted, speaking in a softer voice. “I’m happy to let the both of you stay for breakfast tomorrow morning, but if you don’t feel comfortable staying the whole night, that’s fine. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you raided the pantry a bit and took off in the middle of the night.” 

The witch stood up, returning to her normal volume. “Well, I’m gonna hit the hay, I say you two do the same.” Taking her advice, John and Leo made their way back into the living room. Leo offered his friend the couch, but John simply sat in the chair and fell asleep almost instantly. Leo tried to make himself comfortable on the couch, but without some mindless fireside chat with John to tire him out, sleep was harder to come by. Memories of awkward moments he caused like the one earlier that night, on the other hand, were abundant. However, eventually he too was able to rest.

Eda was used to waking up in the middle of the night, the night terrors her curse had caused made sure of that. While those had gone away after sharing the curse with her sister, something else had woken her up. Another far away clattering soon helped her remember the two new kids staying the night, who must have been taking their leave. If she was honest with herself, she felt bad knowing that they would go back to spending their nights under some makeshift shelter in the woods, but she knew they were smart to not trust her in the little time they spent together.

When Leo woke up, the sun was barely peeking through the small window next to the door. He quickly recalled the events of the past night, and how he and John had decided to stay until morning. When he looked to the chair, however, his friend was nowhere to be found. Panic began to rise in Leo’s chest as he quickly got up and made his way to the kitchen, hoping to find John having an early breakfast. Instead, he was greeted to another room as empty as the one he was just in. _Bathroom,_ he thought. _John must be in the bathroom, but where is it?_ Leo started to creep through the halls, looking for a door to a bathroom and finding only closets crammed with ragged clothes and dusty knickknacks. After exhausting the main floor, he slowly made his way upstairs, where he quickly found a door with a sign labeling it as the “ladies (and King)” room. He gave a short knock, but upon hearing no response, slowly opened the door. The room was empty, save for an owl preening its feathers. Leo now truly began to panic, and abandoned any sense of stealth in favor of running through the halls, throwing open every door he could find. He found closets, junk stashes, and even a small armory, but none containing his friend. Eventually, his search led him to finding Eda’s room, who greeted him with a tired “huh?”

“WHERE ARE THEY?” Leo demanded. “What?” Eda asked, still disoriented by the boy who had just woke her up and started interrogating her.

“DON’T PLAY DUMB WITH ME!” Leo shouted, a shaky voice betraying the mask of anger he wore. “WHERE’S JOHN?! THEY WERE RIGHT THERE WHEN I FELL ASLEEP, AND NOW THEY’RE GONE! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM?!”

“Hold on,” Eda replied, hands raised. “I didn’t do anything. I heard someone moving around in the middle of the night, they must’ve taken off then. I’m just surprised you didn’t go with ‘em.”

“What?” Leo’s facade dropped as he realized the possibility that for the first time since the two came here, one of them left the other behind. He sat down in the middle of the floor, burying his head in his hands. “I screwed up. I screwed up _bad_.” He wasn’t saying it to anyone but himself, but Eda responded anyway. “Yeah, you kinda did,” she said matter-of-factly. “Nothing an offering of pancakes can’t fix!”

Leo lifted his head slightly. “Pancakes?”

“You know what those are, right? Luz pretty much begged me to make some the first time she realized I had the mix.”

“Yeah, that… that’d be great.”

“While you wait for those to get done, you can go around and close all those doors you opened. Hooty says that too many open doors makes him feel ‘exposed.’” She shuddered at the implication.

The pancakes may have been severely burnt, but despite that Leo scarfed them down like they were the best thing he ever tasted. Once he cleared his plate, Eda handed him a small basket with a cloth over it. “There’s 6 in there for your friend. Keep the basket, I’ve got plenty.”

“Thanks.”

“So, what are you gonna do now?”

“Go back, I guess. Apologize to them, give them the pancakes, and we’ll go back to normal.”

“Good luck with that.” Leo couldn’t tell if Eda’s comment was genuine or sarcastic.

“Ooh, are those pancakes?” Luz came into the kitchen, wearing a colorful uniform.

“Hold your rat worms,” Eda said, “let me get this kid out the door first.”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” Luz said, digging into her pocket. She pulled out a pamphlet with a torn corner and handed it to Leo. “I know that you guys might feel… kinda awkward about being around me after last night, but going to Hexside is totally worth it. Besides, the school’s big enough that you can go a long time without running into someone you don’t want to see.”

“As much as I hate to say it,” Eda added, “I think you should go there too. It _is_ school, but it’s far better than whatever you’ve been doing for the past few months.”

“We’ll… think about it,” John said hesitantly, making his way to the back door. He opened it, and made his way out. Before he closed it behind him, he turned back to look at Eda. “And thanks, for… all this.”

“Anytime,” she replied. “But not more than, like, twice a week. I can barely handle feeding 4 people every day.”

Leo closed the door, and started walking through the forest. For the first time he could remember, he started to plan his words carefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who can find the reference in John and Leo’s introductions gets a gold star

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this concept bouncing around in my head for a couple of months now, and finally got inspired enough to actually put it into words a couple weeks ago, but it took until today for me to work up the guts to actually show it to others. This is pretty much the first time I’ve written something just because I wanted to write, but hopefully it didn’t show.
> 
> Anyway, enough rambling on the background, I hope you enjoyed this little fic! I have a pretty good idea of where I could take this story next, and if I see that people actually want to see that, I’ll probably be inspired enough to write another couple of chapters.


End file.
